East London College Magazine was the student magazine and continued throughout the First World War. The regular features of news from the college, poems, stories, jokes, sketches, cartoons, and reports from union societies, continued. But the roll of service became a new regular feature, reporting the fate of fellow students to their friends.

Click on the links above to view individual pages of the College Magazine. PDF's may take a while to download depending on the speed of your internet connection.

With many staff on active service or war work, the strain on Hatton, the Director of Evening Classes to continue teaching was immense. Lighted oil lamps were placed in corridors at dusk and the police were asked to tell the College by telephone when Zeppelins were approaching London.

Robert Ernest Howe registered at East London College in 1915, and left in 1916 in the second week of studies to join Artists Rifles(?). He never returned to complete his studies. A note on the card 'killed in war', confirms the reason. He would have been approximately 17.

Westfield College Magazine advertisement for vacation and land work, May 1917.

As woman's college Westfield was able to continue during the war relatively unchanged. However it has been suggested that there were tensions between those staff and students with pacifist tendencies, on religious grounds, which included the Principal Miss Agnes de Selincourt and the others.

Westfield College Magazine advertisement for vacation and land work, May 1917.

A 'War Club' was formed by Miss Sergeant, a history lecturer, with the mission of 'thinking' and 'doing'. Members discussed problems of post war reconstruction, and during the vacations carried out fruit picking and other land work, such as sweeping snow from the Hampstead streets, in order to earn money for the Red Cross. They also dispatched letters and parcels to prisoners of war.

The student cards of East London College students who fought or died in the First World War.

202 student cards have been located in the archives from the estimated 317 students who served in the war. Those who died were commemorated in a war memorial unveiled in the Library (Octagon) in 1923. In addition many staff also served in the forces or undertook war work. One notable example is of Albert Thurston (1881-1964), who was in charge of the safety of design of British Military Aircraft. A former student of East London College, Thurston had established the first university aeronautical laboratory in 1909.